Mogwai performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco on April 22, 2022. Gary Chancer/STAFF.

SAN FRANCISCO — It doesn’t matter if you know the blast is coming. If it’s big enough, the shock wave can still knock you over.

For the first time in a long history of going to concerts, I was physically knocked back a step or two by a sonic wave from a band, Scottish post-rockers Mogwai. It happened during the up and down insane dynamics of “Like Herod,” toward the end of the band’s nearly two-hour set Friday at the Fillmore.

Then, just when things settled down and I actually braced myself for the song’s second blast a few minutes later, it didn’t matter. It still felt like being unexpectedly punched in the chest.

Awesome.

As great as the records have been the last quarter century – and Mogwai plays some of the most enchanting and hypnotic instrumental epics ever recorded – they’re a different pack of animals when you’re in the same room. Their goal isn’t for the audience to merely hear the music. They have to feel it, too.

Mogwai performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco on April 22, 2022.

Things started off as one might expect. Mogwai walked out, guitarist and (rare) vocalist Stuart Braithwaite politely greeted the packed house, and they got to work, playing “To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate the Earth,” the opener from latest album, As the Love Continues.

Though it’s a patient song that builds from multiple guitar and keyboard doodles, as soon as it really kicked in, the bottom end was rumbling through my chest. Mogwai, for all of its emphasis on song structure building into power, plays extremely loud. Like, louder than Black Sabbath and Motorhead playing at the same time loud.

While this might be an irritant in some cases–especially when the intricacies of the songs threaten to get swamped over by the volume backlash–it never crosses the line. Somehow, it’s music you may hear and dissect on a record but live you’re going to do both while also feeling every note. It’s a rare sensation of almost being inside the music with its creators, and it can get intense.

Mogwai performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco on April 22, 2022.

They seemed to get a lot of keyboard-heavy songs like “Dry Fantasy” out of the way early, which required patience (Mogwai is all about being patient enough to construct its music, in the songs themselves, how they sequence albums, and, of course, their shows). “I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead,” was the epitome of the classic Mogwai approach, but the build-up in the live setting was absolutely superb. It was probably the best song of that section of the show, breathing and taking its time to set a mood to later whack you in the brain.

This also set up the three-guitar attack for the last third of the show, during songs like “Ceiling Granny,” “Drive the Nail” and the aforementioned “Like Herod,” when Mogwai pounded listeners with a sonic rollercoaster that reached the viciousness of old Radiohead or Sonic Youth: a wall of focused but frantic eighth and sixteenth note guitar waves while the drums, ever faithfully, continued pounding half-time beats, determinedly fueling the whole noise/melody balancing act. It made you wince at times … in a good way.

The first encore was, predictably, the great “Ritchie Sacramento,” the only vocalized song on As the Love Continues. Braithwaite’s vocals were fine, perhaps a bit buried, but enough to (again) make you wonder why they don’t write more of these. I want to say they ended with “Mogwai Fear Satan,” but by then the senses were threatening overload and the noise was redlining. They brought it back down to end the show on some peaceful notes, reinforcing that Mogwai live is the rare instance of feeling like you didn’t listen to a concert as much as you experienced a thrill ride, which can accurately be said for very few bands.

Folky singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia opened the concert with a set of largely older material, such as “What’s Out There,” from 2010 album Outlaster. Nastasia recently announced a forthcoming new record, Riderless Horse; her first in 12 years, which will be released this summer.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.